Good morning, everyone. Welcome. I recently started going through the Book of Serenity koan collection in some of my talks. And I'm going to continue today with case two of the Book of Serenity. The Book of Serenity is the koan collection that's used most in Soto Zen, the branch of Zen we do here, which comes from Dogen in the 1200s who brought it from China to Japan. And just to say there's a lot of misunderstanding of what koans are. They are not illogical riddles to solve. They certainly do not follow discursive Western-style logic, but they express the logic of awakening.

[01:01]

So these are teaching stories that have been studied for a thousand years or more because they have something to do with our own practice. and the point of studying them. There are some branches of Zen where there's a curriculum where you study one until you present some acceptable response to it and then go on to the next ones. Dogen tradition in the Soto school. We don't study them that way. Dogen spoke about all of these koans extensively and was a master of them, but the point is just to use these as teaching stories to help us see aspects of our own practice. Case two, in Thomas Cleary's translation, he calls Bodhidharma's emptiness. So this is the story of Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu, which is case one in one of the other main Koan collections, the Blue Cliff Record. The Book of Serenity is very much modeled after that.

[02:06]

There's cases and verses. And in the case of the Book of Serenity, they were selected in the verse commentary written by Tianzong Hongzhe, whose practice writings are translated in Cultivating the Empty Field, which we've studied. And then later on another Saodong or Soto teacher wrote introductions and commentaries to the case of the verse. So that's by way of introduction. This story about Bodhidharma, in some ways we could say this is the first or the primary Zen story. So this is kind of the beginning of Zen. Bodhidharma was this Indian master who came to China. And the 500s, I think. And there are many, many stories and legends about him, such that the Western Buddhist historical scholars used to say that he didn't really exist.

[03:10]

He was just a kind of made-up figure, because some of the stories are so outlandish. Maybe I'll mention some of them, but actually we know now that through further research that he did exist, and probably even, or it's possible even, highly likely even, that the story about Bodhidharma's meeting with Emperor Wu is based on something historical. So Emperor Wu, so I'll read the case in the Book of Serenity first. Emperor Wu of Liang, a kingdom in southern China, asked the great teacher Bodhidharma, what is the highest meaning of the holy truths? Bodhidharma said, empty, there's no holy. The emperor was taken aback and said, who are you facing me? Bodhidharma said, don't know. The emperor didn't understand.

[04:12]

Bodhidharma subsequently crossed the Yangtze River, went north in China, came to Shaolin Monastery, and faced a wall for nine years. So in some ways, this is the first story of Chan or Zen. Chan's the Chinese way of pronouncing Zen. Japanese say Zen. There are other stories that I could claim as the first story. But in some ways, this is really the primary story of Zen. And Bodhidharma is on our altar on this side to the left, a standing figure. that, so when I went to China in 2007, the first year I was living in Chicago, I did a tour with Andy Ferguson, who has spent a lot of time in Chinese Zen sites, and we went to Shaolin, there's a mountain there and a cave up at the top, which is where Bodhidharma sat for nine years facing the wall.

[05:16]

Later on, we went to another temple where he actually was the teacher a little later on, Kongshan Empty Form Temple. And at that place, one of my students from California presented this to us as a cedar, statue of Bodhidharma standing, so you can look at that later. Bodhidharma is often depicted as very fierce, with a big frown, sometimes with big eyes, because it's said that during those nine years of sitting facing the wall, he, to stay awake, he cut off his eyelids and threw them on the ground, and out of the eyelids grew tea. which began the tea culture in Zen, which led to tea ceremony or chado in Japan. Anyway, there are lots of these stories about Bodhidharma. Sometimes he's depicted with very big eyes. But he sat facing a wall in this cave at the top of Shaolin Monastery for nine years.

[06:22]

before he went out and actually taught or said anything to anybody else. But this, first he went to Southern China, and he met with the Emperor Wu, and before the earlier part of this exchange is, Emperor Wu, who had built many monasteries and arranged for the ordination of many monks and nuns and sub-translations of many sutras, these sutras claim that doing such things produces great merit. So Emperor Wu, who was a Buddhist patron, and here was this master coming from India, the homeland of Buddhism, asked Bodhidharma, what merit have I gained from all of those good works I've done? Madhudvisa das remembers So we practice with these robes and all the forms of walking around and bowing and offering incense, but it's not something special or holy.

[08:03]

This is just our expression of expressing Buddha in our own body, mind, and expressing our gratitude to the ancient Buddhas, the tradition of Buddhas and ancestors like Bodhidharma. So the emperor was taken aback when Bodhidharma said, empty, nothing holy. And he said, well, who are you facing me? And Bodhidharma said, don't know. And so this is a warning to any of you who think you know who you are. that who we are is deeper and wider than our personal histories. And it includes, of course, all of our personal karma of grasping and anger and confusion. But who are you? Bodhidharma said, I don't know.

[09:03]

The emperor was confused. He didn't understand. And then Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtze River to the north, came to Shaolin, and faced a wall for nine years. That's the version in the Book of Serenity, which we're focusing on. But this is also the first case, the very first case in the Blue Cliff Record, And often it's used in the Shuso ceremony, the ceremony for the head monk. When they're questioned, they use this version from the Blue Cliff Record. Recently, Aishen, our recent Shuso, used a story about Vimalakirti, the great enlightened layman of Buddha's time, and Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. But let me read you the part of the Blue Cliff Record that's a little different. So it has the exchange the same as in the Book of Serenity between Emperor Wu and Bodhidharma. And then it said, after this, Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtze River and came to the kingdom of Wei.

[10:04]

So it doesn't mention, as the Book of Serenity does, that he came to Shaolin and faced a wall for nine years. And then there's a whole other section of the Blue Cliff Records story. Later, the emperor brought this up to Master Jue, who was his Buddhist teacher, who taught Buddhist sutras and texts, and asked him about it. And Master Jue said, does your majesty know who this person was? And the emperor said, I don't know. So that's a contrasting I don't know. Master Jue said, he is the Mahasattva, the great being of Alokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion, transmitting the Buddha mind seal. When he heard this, the emperor felt regretful, so he wanted to send an emissary to go invite Bodhidharma to return. Master Chuh said to him, your majesty, don't say that you will send someone to fetch him back.

[11:06]

Even if everyone in the whole country were to go after him, he still would not return. So that's the version in the Blue Cliff Record. all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Bodhidharma back together again in southern China. There's a little different emphasis in these two versions. One of the contexts of the Blue Cliff Record is to state strongly that Bodhidharma was an exemplar, an incarnation even, of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, who we also have images of in our zendo back there and over here. It's hard to see unless you look closely, but the Bodhisattva of Compassion who listens to the suffering of the world and And to say that Bodhidharma was the Bodhisattva of compassion after he abandoned Emperor Wu, from one point of view, is part of the koan in the Blue Cliff Record.

[12:12]

So each of these teaching stories have many aspects often, and this one does too. But the version in the Book of Serenity that we're focusing on, It doesn't talk about Emperor Wu after Bodhidharma left. It just says, Bodhidharma came to Shaolin, to this monastery, and faced a wall for nine years. And the commentary after, by Wansong, a great later 13th century Chinese Saodong, or Shota master, emphasizes, Why did Bodhidharma do this? How does the teaching get transmitted? What's the point of just facing a wall for nine years? How does this... So, you know, in some ways we could think of Bodhidharma like Suzuki Roshi, my teacher's teacher, who brought Zen to California in the 60s.

[13:16]

Bodhidharma was going from India to China, very different cultures, very different countries. China already had Buddhist teaching and they had many Buddhist scholars and Buddhist monks who had studied the Dharma, the teaching of Buddha. But what Bodhidharma was bringing was this actual practice of zazen that we've just been doing. Sitting facing the wall as Bodhidharma did, being present and upright, and allowing, I would say, and Dogen would say, allowing Buddha to be present on your seat in this body-mind. That's not something that Bodhidharma explained, but what he did, he left Emperor Wu and he went and faced a wall for nine years. Suzuki Roshi came to Japan, came to San Francisco and worked in the Japanese community there as a priest of Soto Zen, which was a popular, second most popular form of Buddhism in Japan.

[14:28]

So he was initially a priest for the Japanese-American community who knew something about Buddhism and had known about Zazen, although he stressed Zazen more than all of the ceremonies and chanting. It was a big part of Japanese Soto Zen. But then, being the 60s, there were all these people who showed up who had heard about Zen, and this was the 60s, and there were all these hippies in San Francisco. And Paul Disko, who was here recently and spoke several times, was one of them who showed up, showed up at Tassajara on his motorcycle. And he talked about Suzuki Roshi. It's now on our website. You can listen to what he says. But it was a different situation. But in some ways, it's actually a bigger transition between cultures from Japan to America.

[15:30]

Anyway, India to China was also a large transition. But all of the 60s hippie type people who came to sit with Suzuki Roshi did not have a background in Buddhist teaching like Emperor Wu did. They had a lot of ideas about Well, we might say New Age or about spirituality or trying to get free of Western spirituality and anyway. But it's interesting to think of this as a transition, like the transition we're doing by bringing this practice to Chicago. Anyway, he faced the wall for nine years. I'll read next the, And I might come back to talk about it some, but the verse that Hongzhe wrote commenting on this. Empty, nothing holy. The approach is far off.

[16:33]

Succeeding, he swings the axe without injuring the nose. Failing, he drops the pitcher without looking back. Still and silent, coolly he sat at Shaolin. In silence, he completely brought up the true imperative. The clear moon of autumn turns its frosty disk. The milky way thin, the dipper hangs down its handle in the night. In succession, the robe and bowl have been imparted to descendants. From this, humans and divinities have made medicine and disease." So at the end, he's referring to the transmission of the robe and bowl, and the continuing of this tradition, which Bodhidharma, considered the founder of Chan or Zen in China, started, according to this story. And still we do Dharma transmission and passing along robe and bowl.

[17:38]

So the question is, how does this practice and teaching continue? And it's always the question here in Chicago, in our time, a very different time from what Bodhidharma faced. How does this, how does something, what Hongzhe calls the true imperative, in silence he completely brought up the true imperative, And then Hongzhu is very poetic, the clear moon of autumn turns its frosty disk. How does that continue? How is it that we here are able to practice this practice that Bodhidharma did, facing a wall for nine years? So the Blue Cliff Record version sort of emphasizes again, you know, him turning away from Emperor Wu. The commentary in the Book of Serenity refers to Prajnatara, who was Bodhidharma's teacher in southern India.

[18:48]

Prajnatara once instructed Bodhidharma, the great teacher, Sixty-seven years after my death, Prajnatara said, you will go to China to present the medicine of the great teaching. So Buddhism is often talked about as medicine, as healing from the difficulties we face because of the suffering we create with our own greed, hate, and delusion, because of the suffering created by our society, whatever society exists at the time in some ways. So Prajnatara said, present the medicine of the great teaching, showing it directly to those of excellent faculties. So part of Zen that seems mysterious or puzzling or illogical or whatever is to get through our usual ways of thinking.

[19:55]

Not that our usual ways of thinking can't be helpful at times, but there's something deeper. So when we sit satsang, we have the chance of connecting, communing with the calm uprightness of the Buddhas, of settling some, of seeing our own patterns of grasping and anger and so forth, but also communing with something much deeper, the true imperative, as Hongshu says. It's not that it's something holy, because again, Bodhidharma said, empty, there's no holy. So it's not about finding some great sacred understanding or seeing some great exalted vision of, you know, Buddhas and bodhisattvas flashing lights and so forth, or, you know, experiencing something like that. Those kind of experiences happen, but they're not the point. So, going back to Prajnatara, talking to Bodhidharma back in India, he said, present the medicine of the great teaching, showing it directly to those of excellent faculties, but be careful not to go too fast and wither under the sun.

[21:14]

So Zen particularly, maybe Buddhism generally, is not about going out and preaching on street corners and so forth. We have this humble little storefront temple that people can come to, but don't go too fast. You'll wither under the sun, Prajnatara said. When you get there, don't stay in the South. There they only like fabricated merit and don't see the inner reality of Buddhahood. So, you know, it's funny in many cultures, Southerners get put down, you know. It happens here too. And Prajnatara, you know, we don't know that Prajnatara said this historically, but this is later one song. saying what he, I'm sure he got it from some earlier tradition, what Bodhidharma was told by his teacher. He said, don't stay in the South. They only like fabricated merit. And you know, in Emperor Wu's defense, a lot of the sutras do talk about creating merit.

[22:21]

by the sutras or scriptures say, if you read this text, if you do meditation, if you chant and so forth, you'll get lots of merit. And that's part of the culture of Buddhism in Asia. And we can think of merit as positive spiritual energy. rather than some merit badge, but anyway. But Prajnatara said, they don't see the inner reality of Buddhahood, so even if you go there, you shouldn't stay too long. So, Bodhidharma didn't. He had this exchange with Emperor Wu and then he split. As it says, after all it turned out that he did travel to Liang in the south and then he crossed over into Wei in the north and remained unmoving for nine years. You know, this is controversial.

[23:22]

Did he just sit for nine years? There are little statues of Bodhidharma and Arjuna in Japan that there's no legs, like his legs fell off from sitting for nine years. And you knock it over and it bounces back upright. The point is this uprightness. So again, you know, because of all these funny sort of superhuman stories about Bodhidharma. Historical scholars thought he didn't really exist, but we know he did now. Wansong goes on, though, in his commentary, in recent times, when Xuzhou's robe and teaching were bequested to Renshan, Renshan said, and Xuzhou is Wansong's own teacher. So Renshan must have been one of his Dharma brothers. And Wansong is very interesting, and at some point, as we're talking about the Book of Serenity, I'll get into that, maybe even today. But anyway, when Suzhou wanted to give, bestow his robe and bowl, and the teaching, his robe and the Dharma, and the succession onto Renshan, Renshan said, I am not such a person.

[24:32]

He wouldn't accept it. This is being careful like Bodhidharma. Sajja said, not being such a person, you do not afflict him. So to think if he had thought he was such a person, oh yeah, I can take care of that. Yeah, give me the rope. Let me spread the Dharma. That would have afflicted him, referring to Bodhidharma. So again, this caution at the beginning of the Zen tradition. This guy sat facing a wall for nine years. Then what Wansong says about his drummer brother Renshan, because of his deep sense of gratitude for the milk of the true teaching, Renshan raised his downcast eyes and accepted.

[25:38]

Xizhe went on to say, now you are thus, now you are such. Most important, don't appear in the world too readily. If you rush ahead and burst out flippantly, you'll surely get stuck in root. So this is a caution to all so-called Buddhist teachers. And maybe it was a mistake for me to come to Chicago. I still don't know. 11 and a half years later. I don't think so. I think there's lots of really fine practitioners here. And so I'm glad of that and that support. But I had been sitting Zazen every day for 25 years before I was given Dharma transmission by my teacher, Reb Anderson.

[26:44]

So maybe I didn't do anything too quickly. I don't know. There's a verse then that's one song quotes, willing to endure the autumn frost, so the deep savor of the teaching will last, even though caught alive, after all, he is not lavishly praised. And actually, Bodhidharma is often, you know, that one of the main koans, one of the main questions in all the koan literature is why did the first ancestor come from the West? What's the meaning of bodhidharmaks coming from India to China? And a lot of the koans give interesting answers, like Jow Jow said, oh, the tree over there in the garden.

[27:44]

Anyway, some of the answers are rather vulgar, and sometimes bodhidharma is described as a pest who brought all this trouble to us by some of the Zen masters, and maybe so. Anyway. Tuan Sung goes on, reading some of his commentary, I say, leaving aside the highest meaning for the moment, what do you want with the holy truths? Tian Tong said, just end profane feelings. There's no special holy understanding. So, you know, people come to Zen and other Buddhist practices wanting to know the truth, you know, the ultimate truth. Dharma and teachings means also the truth. But if you think there's some ultimate truth, you're missing the point. The Surangama Sutra says, once, unquote, if you create an understanding of holiness, you will succumb to all errors.

[28:51]

So Bodhidharma just said, empty, nothing holy. This practice is not about reaching some final understanding, some ultimate understanding. It's not that we can't have good understandings of the Dharma, but that's not the point. How is this expressed? How did Bodhidharma express it? How did his successors express it? And there's not one right way to do that. So we don't have to all go find a cave and sit facing the wall for nine years. But there's some caution here. So before, so Bodhi, as Bonsong's comment continues, the ancients sometimes came forth, sometimes stayed put, sometimes were silent, sometimes spoke. All were doing Buddha work, the work of awakening. So there's not one right way to do this.

[29:54]

There was one teacher in China who whenever a student came to see him, he would turn around and face the wall and ignore the student. There's another teacher in the Chinese collections who had been an archer, had been a hunter in his life before he entered the monastery, turned away from the world. took the backward step to face himself, which is another way we talk about this. Turning away from the usual values of the world, to look inside, to see what's really important. Not to find some single holy truth, but what's, as Suki Roshi used to say, what's the most important thing? What do you really care about? Maybe there's several most important things, but what are we doing here? What's the point of your life? What's the point of this practice that helps promote awakening?

[31:01]

So this one teacher who was a student of Masa's was a hunter and he stumbled into Masa's monastery because he was chasing a deer that he wanted to kill. And Masa told him to stop. And later on when he was a teacher, whenever, much later on, whenever a student came, he would take his bow and arrow and as if ready to shoot the student. And one time a student came, and when the teacher did that, he said, okay, go ahead. How do we receive this teaching? How did Bodhidharma, you know, we could say, why did Bodhidharma face the wall for nine years? Maybe there's no why, there's no secret meaning, it's just that's what he did. So this verse commentary by Hongzhe is very interesting.

[32:14]

Hongzhe is very poetic and erudite. And there's several references to the great Taoist teacher Zhuangzi in this. So Hongzhe's commentaries were aimed at Chinese literati who knew the Chinese classics. And so he referred to stories from Chinese history. from great Chinese classics like Zhuangzi, one of the great Taoist teachers. Maybe I'll just say a little bit about this, but then I want to open it up to questions and comments about Bodhidharma. Maybe we'll see if Bodhidharma's here. Anyway, Hongzhe says, empty, nothing holy, the approach is far off. Succeeding, he swings the axe without injuring the nose. Failing, he drops the pitcher without looking back. Those are both references to famous Chinese, famous stories from Zhuangzi, famous in China.

[33:15]

This is like if we give commentaries to these stories and reference Beatles lyrics or something, you know, it would be like that. Or Shakespeare, maybe. Anyway, he swings the axe without injuring the nose, which comes from Zhuangzi saying, very far off, not, oh wait, not, this is about the first part. The thing about swinging the axe is from a story. Zhuangzi was attending a funeral procession. As they passed the grave of Suise, another great teacher, he turned and said to his followers, Zhuangzi said, as Yingren was plastering a wall, he splashed a bit on his nose. A spot as big as a fly wing of plaster was on his nose.

[34:17]

So he had Jiangshi cut it off. He asked Jiangshu to cut it off, one of his friends or students. Jiangshu swung his axe, creating a breeze, and cut it off with a whoosh. So he managed to miss hitting the nose with his axe. closing his eyes, letting his hands swing freely, he did cut away the whole spot without injuring Yingren's nose. Yingren just stood there without flinching. And Zhuang said, since the death of those people, I have no one capable of being my disciple. The story about the reference from Hongsha to failing, he drops the picture without looking back. This is from another story from Zhuangzi. a Meng Min of the later Han dynasty, so one of these great ancient Chinese philosophers, stayed in a place during his travels.

[35:34]

Once as he was carrying a pitcher, it fell to the ground, but he went on without looking back. Well, Lin Zhong saw this and asked him the meaning of that. Meng Min replied, the pitcher is already broken, what's the use of turning back or looking back? So this is kind of a way of talking about Bodhidharma not returning to see Emperor Wu. He'd already told Emperor Wu everything he had to tell him. And maybe Emperor Wu couldn't hear anymore. Maybe he could. We don't know. So this is a koan about Emperor Wu as well. Anyway. So maybe I'll leave Hongzhe's verse just still in silence. Coolly he sat at Shaolin. In silence he completely brought up the true imperative.

[36:34]

So there's more in the commentary and there's an introduction which is interesting, but I think I'll stop now and just ask for comments or questions or responses to Bodhidharma sitting for nine years facing a wall up in this cave by Shaolin Monastery, or any other part of the story. Questions, comments, responses, please feel free. Well, that was the very part of the story that I was thinking about the most, so I'll ask the questions that I had about it, which it was. Maybe it's not a question, but it's kind of just back to a commentary on the riskiness of silence, you know, when a student comes to Bodhidharma and Bodhidharma just, you know, faces the wall and turns away. It just seems very risky. Someone might be able to say, OK, maybe I'll just stick around for a while.

[37:41]

Someone else might say, oh, this person doesn't want me here. It really kind of hit or miss, to use the other metaphor. And I don't know. I guess I have very mixed feelings about that approach. Good. So that was the approach then. That's what started Chan and Zen. How do we share the teaching? 2018, is it, in Chicago? How does it get conveyed? And maybe we need, yeah, go ahead. So if there had been somebody else there, they could have said, oh, he always does that. Right. Well, eventually, so to continue the story, the story goes that there was a successor to Bodhidharma, fortunately, named Weka.

[38:47]

And he heard about, people started to hear about this Indian master sitting up in a cave in the middle of the snow, because it's cold there in North China. And so he showed up, and he stood outside the cave, waiting to talk to Bodhidharma, and Bodhidharma just ignored him. And then one night, the story goes, the legend goes, to prove his sincerity, he stood out all night in the snow, and the snow was up to his waist or whatever, and he cut off his arm, and in the morning handed it to Bodhidharma. Now, this is not something that any of you need to do in order to practice Zen, fortunately. And actually, the story goes that at that point, Bodhidharma was willing to talk to him because he proved his sincerity. There are various other ways of proving sincerity short of that. And in fact, historically, we know that Weike

[39:49]

had his arm cut off, not in that incident, but previously by a bandit. So, he did have one arm, so he was known for that. But then, Bodhidharma had other students, and there's a story about four of them, Bodhidharma asking, How do you, you know, what is your teaching or how do you understand the teaching? And Hueco of the four, one of them was a nun too, there were men and women, Bodhidharma just bowed. The others said other wonderful things, but Bodhidharma just, Hueco just bowed and Bodhidharma said, you have my marrow. And that was understood as the deepest understanding. To one of them he said, you have my skin, you have my flesh. He said to another, you have my bones. But Wicca had the marrow, so he got the deepest. meaning of Bodhidharma and became what we call the second ancestor in the lineage we chant. But Dogen's commentary on that is that skin, flesh, bones, and marrow are equally Bodhidharma.

[40:57]

It's not that one is better than the other. So, yeah. So, this is all a great challenge to us. Anne? It seems like there are two things in your talk that are connected. One is this harshness. He goes away and he's not coming back. Someone cuts off their arm. It's very harsh. And at the same time, people should be cautious when they're starting to practice or when a country is starting to practice, like a new country is here. And so it seems like the harshness is the expression of caution. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, we don't know.

[42:01]

We don't know. Just like Bodhidharma didn't know who he was. We don't know who we are. And yes, that's one of the big differences between Asian culture and Western culture and where this practice is taking on. And we have at least a couple of therapists here in the room. And so, yeah, we have to look at it in different ways. But still, there's this caution. Be careful. Take good care of this. How do we convey this carefully? Yeah, I feel that way. I started attending a lecture on vipassana, and Joseph Goldstein said something once. He was talking about vipassana mindfulness as sort of a foreground. It's a very important tool. And he said, I think it's really good that mindfulness is now very popular. People use it in jails, and it helps people. And it's not mindfulness as a tool to understand that everything is impermanent.

[43:08]

Right. I think it's really good that there are these new medical hospitals everywhere, but I worry that future generations in America, how deeply they will practice Buddhism. So I think that question of how deeply, what's going to happen in the future, is that he also has that feeling of caution, or just wondering, what are we going to do? How's this going to work out? Good. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Yes, Miriam. Oh, good. Yes, thank you, and that's an important difference along with Western psychology that we have

[44:29]

You know, one of the things about Buddhism in this country is that all the different forms of Buddhism, and good teachers from all the different forms of Buddhism, the different forms of Zen, as well as other forms of Buddhism are here. So we have a way, it's a really unique situation in the history of Buddhism, maybe since the very beginning of Buddhism, where all the different, the ways that Buddhism developed in all the different cultures, and all the different approaches to practice, are available. And one of the things I really appreciate about this sangha is that people have come from having experience in many different other forms of Zen and Buddhism and other traditions. So that's gives, I think that's a kind of hopeful thing. And also, as you said, people around the world paying attention to some situation, this group of kids in Thailand, and caring about it. Just the caring that happens around the world, that's also something, that communication gives us something that's different from, very different from Bodhidharma's situation.

[45:35]

Kirshen. And I have a strong memory of early days of my practice, hearing the story that you told tonight, and really liking Emperor Wu, and really not liking Bodhidharma. Emperor Wu was doing all this great stuff, and Bodhidharma And yet, in this cycle... Yeah, it's about deeper

[46:50]

deeper awareness, deeper reality, and this practice of zazen, just sitting facing the wall, especially if you do it regularly. I recommend doing it at home in your spare time, you know. It doesn't have to be 35 minutes, it can be 15 or 10 minutes even, just to take some time in your life to stop. and sit down and face the wall and face yourself. And whatever happens is okay. It's just sitting. It's not that you have to figure anything out. It's not that something flashy has to happen. It's just being present with yourself in that way. And being present with yourself in that way actually connects us to everybody else. Yes, Nyeosang. Can I just warn him?

[48:40]

Right, good. Yeah, yeah. It's not that there's, you know, Bodhidharma said no merit to Ambru Wu, but of course, you know, and I think the word merit is, you know, we think of merit badges or something. It just, you know, we can understand it as just this positive, creative, constructive, helpful energy that happens from Zazen and happens from doing positive, helpful things, so. And you don't know what's going to work.

[50:17]

So you know, you just see. Yeah, good, thank you. Yeah, and then just the last point, jumping off from what you said, is that Dogen also emphasizes not, so there is this side of practice of deepening, to put it that way, awareness, not reaching some ultimate state, but deepening our awareness and our openness and our steadiness to be more helpful in the world. But the point of that, that Dogen emphasizes, is how do you express that? And so to express, so being right out on the storefront, we come to sit to find some steadiness and some openness. But then the point is, how do we use that to be helpful in the world? So yeah, both sides.

[51:38]

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